Exam Review: Key U.S. Wars

The Seven Years War (French and Indian War)

• Dates: 1754-1763 (9 years)
• Cause: British vs. French over territory in the U.S., specifically land claimed by the Ohio Company.
• President: None (America was not yet a country).
• Effects:
  • Proclamation of 1763: Forbade colonists from settling west of the Appalachians to prevent conflict with Native Americans. Colonists resented this restriction.
  • War debt: Britain required colonists to share the war's cost through taxes (acts), leading to resentment.

The Revolutionary War (American Revolution/War for Independence)

• Dates: 1775-1783
• Cause:
  • Acts: Taxes to pay the Seven Years’ War debt.
  • American Exceptionalism: The idea that Americans understood freedom better than anyone else, as articulated in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
• President: None (America was not yet a country). War efforts were organized by the Continental Congress.
• Effects:
  • America became an independent country.
  • Freedom was primarily for white males (excluding women, African Americans, and Native Americans).
  • Separation of church and state: Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

The War of 1812

• Dates: 1812-1814
• Cause:
  • Impressment: British impressment of American sailors.
  • Native Alliances: Collaboration between the British and Tecumseh, along with other native leaders, to reclaim native land.
• President: James Madison
• Effects:
  • Status Quo: “Nothing gained, nothing lost.”
  • Nationalism: Increased pride in being American.
  • “Second War of Independence”: Americans had now defeated the British twice.

The Mexican-American War

• Dates: 1846-1848
• Cause:
  • Territorial Ambition: Polk wanted California, but Mexico refused to sell it.
  • Texas Annexation Issues: Mexico was still angry about the Texas Revolution.
  • Border Dispute: Polk marched Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande River; Mexico believed the Nueces River was the border and saw this as an invasion, leading them to fire the first shots.
• President: James K. Polk
• Effects:
  • Territorial Expansion: The U.S. won California and almost half of Mexico’s territory.
  • Slavery Question: New territories raised the question of whether they would enter as slave or free states.
  • Compromise of 1850: Replaced by the Missouri Compromise.
    1. California entered as a free state.
    2. Other states would be decided by popular sovereignty, leading to “Bleeding Kansas.”

The Civil War

• Dates: 1861-1865
• Cause:
  • Southern Secession: Southern states seceded from the Union.
  • Slavery: The fundamental issue was slavery.
• President: Abraham Lincoln
• Effects:
  • Emancipation Proclamation.
  • Constitutional Amendments: 13th Amendment (abolished slavery), 14th and 15th Amendments (during Reconstruction).
  • Reintegration: The South rejoined the Union.
  • Jim Crow South: By the end of Reconstruction (1877), Southern African Americans lived in a segregated Jim Crow South, where the amendments were largely ignored.

The Spanish-American War

• Dates: 1898
• Cause:
  • Cuban Independence: Cuba sought America’s help to gain independence from Spanish rule.
  • U.S.S. Maine: Mysterious explosion of the U.S.S. Maine, which yellow press newspapers claimed was caused by a Spanish secret weapon.
  • Imperialism:
    1. Expanded markets.
    2. Military bases.
    3. Belief in white superiority.
• President: McKinley
• Effects:
  • "Splendid Little War": Over in 15 weeks.
  • Imperialism: Motivated further engagement in imperialism, including the Philippines, Open Door policy in China, Guam, Panama Canal, and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

World War I

• Dates: 1914-1918
• Cause: AA-NILZ
  • Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
  • Alliances: Central Powers vs. Allies.
  • Nationalism.
  • Imperialism: Including Woodrow Wilson's moral imperialism to make the world safe for democracy.
  • Lusitania: Sinking of the British boat Lusitania with Americans on board.
  • Zimmermann Telegram: From Germany to Mexico, encouraging an invasion of the U.S., promising to help Mexico regain land lost in the Mexican-American War.
• President: Woodrow Wilson (Moral Imperialist)
• Effects:
  • Treaty of Versailles: Required Germany to pay enormous reparations ($33 \, \text{billion}$).
  • Economic Depression in Germany: Hitler rose to popularity by promising to restore Germany’s greatness and blaming the Jewish population for its problems.
  • League of Nations: Created by Wilson but rejected by the American people.
  • Isolationism: America became isolationist.

World War II

• Dates: 1941-1945
• Cause:
  • Rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe.
  • Pearl Harbor: Pearl Harbor moved America away from isolationism and into war.
• President: FDR until his death, then Truman.
• Effects:
  • Atomic Bomb: Truman used the atomic bomb.
  • Cold War: Stalin violated Yalta and kept part of Eastern Europe, beginning the Cold War.

Korean War

• Dates: 1950-1953
• Cause: North Korea invaded South Korea.
• President: Truman
• Effects:
  • Division: The country is still divided at the 38th parallel.
  • Desegregation: 1st war fought by a desegregated army (whites and African Americans fought together).

The Cold War

• Dates: 1945-1991
• Cause:
  • Soviet Grievances: Soviets were angry at the U.S.’s late entry into the war and huge number of Soviet casualties.
  • Expansion: The U.S. was angry that the Soviets expanded their empire (Eastern Europe) after WWII and worried about Soviet world domination.
• Presidents: Truman, Eisenhower (MAD), JFK (Space Race, Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs), LBJ (Vietnam), Nixon (Vietnam and China), Ford, Carter (Iran Hostage Crisis), Reagan, H.W. Bush (fall of Berlin Wall and Cold War ends during his presidency).
• Effects:
  • Soviet Economic Problems: The Cold War ended because of Soviet economic problems. Russian leader Gorbachev introduced “glasnost” (political openness) and “perestroika” (economic reform).
  • End of Communism: By 1989, all Soviet states (except Russia) had replaced their communist governments.

The Vietnam War

• Dates: 1955-1975
• Cause:
  • French Weakness: After WWII, France was weakened and could no longer control Vietnam. The U.S. worried Vietnam would turn communist.
  • Containment Policy: Following containment policy, the U.S. fought in Vietnam to stop communism from spreading to Vietnam and the rest of Asia (domino effect).
• Presidents: Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon
• Effects:
  • Student Activism: SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) anti-war movement.
  • Distrust in Government: Pentagon Papers showed presidents had lied about what was happening in Vietnam.
  • War Powers Act: The president must have the consent of Congress to declare war.